Tag Archives: guard your hearts

Want to know a secret? I am coming out of a cocoon of emotional healing recently, and my life has significantly transformed. I have metamorphosed into Bonnie 4.0. Here’s just a tiny window into the changes that, taken one at a time seem small, but when pieced together, they reveal the Father’s loving, gentle artwork.

The Potter and His clay.

Isaiah 64:8 But now, O LORD, you are our Father; #wearetheclay, and you are our #potter; we are all the work of your hand.

I get up early. (I am not a morning person and require seven hours of sleep to be pleasant.)

I talk to hummingbirds and tadpoles. (I have never been a nature person. Lately, I’ve turned into my Polish grandmother 40 years too soon, interrupting every conversation to comment on the amazing cardinal or chickadee to land on my bird feeder.)

I cheer on my garden plants. (I never used to be able to keep a houseplant alive; the thought of planting anything made me break out in hives.)

I let more stress slide off me. (I have two teenagers, a younger child with special needs, a traveling husband, and a [small] publishing business. Stress has been my middle name for as long as I can remember. So has sleeping in a position where by morning my shoulders are touching my earlobes and my neck all twisted up.)

I laugh more. (I’ve always cherished humor. I’m 44 years old, and potty humor can still send me into hysterics. So can three shots of espresso. But ab-tightening laughter? It escaped me for many years. I could not find it. It ran off somewhere and didn’t send me the address.)

I tell my dogs crazy things, and they love me anyway. (I get ridiculously, roll-on-the-floor caught up in chatting up my Shih Tzus as if they think about anything but eat, sleep, my lap, going outside, and treats.) Read the rest of this entry »

To begin, I want to ask us all a question: Do we feel we have to answer the door every time there is a knock or doorbell ring?

If I’m not expecting someone, I don’t always answer, especially if answering means grabbing a robe, hurrying out of the bathroom, or interrupting something going on that needs my full attention. I will fully disclose that I’m not much of a phone or drop-in visitor person; however, if a knock sounds urgent, I usually make an attempt to answer it. Otherwise, I don’t feel I have to get to it just because it’s a noise beckoning me. Same thing with the phone ringing.

So, I got to thinking:

Why do we feel we have to entertain negative voices when they come along?

Why do we let them in, help them take their shoes off, hang up their coats, and invite them to take up space in our living rooms?

Why do we mislead them into thinking they are welcomed and may cross our threshold any time that suits them?

Fear.

We are often afraid:

to offend

to lose the relationship

to not meet expectation

to hurt someone without meaning to

to deal with repercussions from anger

But I would like to suggest it’s dishonest to let them (the negativity, not necessarily the person) in unless we plan to join them (and I surely hope we don’t). I also think it’s easier to be passive and open the door.

It takes courage and action to say: “No, we’re not going to go there. That is not a place you may make commentary or cast judgment upon,” or “It’s lovely to see you, but rejection, disrespect, and discouragement are not on the menu today. What else would you like to talk about?”

I have been pondering this quite a bit recently as several friends shared some relational struggles they were having with others. We all have them. These were my thoughts:

Boundaries aren’t for shutting people out, but they are defined as being unwilling to remain in dysfunctional, dishonoring patterns, but simultaneously inviting the other person to come along and engage in—or at first learn—new, healthy patterns of relating. We can invite people to get on that train, but we cannot make them ride it.

Now, this all sounds like I have this under control and sit above everyone else doling out boundaries right and left. Quite the contrary. I learn much from those who have drawn them for me over time. Sometimes, their boundaries may be out of over-self-protection, but I still need to observe them. At other times, lines drawn in the sand for me have at least indicated where the relationship could or could not go.

Boundaries are like navigational tools to help us know how to relate better with someone. They provide a map of safe topics and interactions and clue us in, if we’re willing to listen, to where we should and should not tread. If we’re careful about communicating, our boundaries should do the same for others.

But, bringing it back to negative voices: We don’t have to allow them. Plenty of naysaying goes on in our lives every day—some of it constructive but much of it destructive. When people want to go down Toxic Alley with us, we don’t have to permit it. In fact, they are often looking for us to provide some guardrails for the relationship, and if we don’t, they are like children who don’t know the rules in their own homes: insecure and lost. Not only that, by being passive, we give negativity permission to come in and stay a while. Once it gets in the door, it often takes over the relationship, gets into our heads and hearts, and hijacks everything that could be good or constructive.

That doesn’t mean we shut the person (or people) out, necessarily—just the behaviors that are destructive.

This can also be true when nobody real is knocking at the door…only our own negative voices from the past. I write a lot about this in Not Just on Sundays: Seeking God’s Purpose in Each New Day. Whatever we have let in and made welcomed will keep coming back. Guaranteed. When we swirl around in negative thinking, we’ve already let the first thought in the door and offered it a cup of coffee.

So, how do we stop the madness inside our minds and hearts? The perseverating? Bitter chewing? Stewing in ugly thoughts of insecurity, misunderstanding, misconceptions, wrong assumptions? How do we stop them at the door?

We don’t let them in.

Just because negative voices knock on our doors, bang into our minds, and try to take up space in our hearts,

we do not have to let them in.

Here are some answers I draw from my faith in Christ and His redemptive work on the cross. The first selection talks about how not to be anxious (bring it!). Really, doesn’t negative thinking contribute to anxiety, and vice versa? It’s an ever-hungry beast.

What’s the remedy for stopping negative thoughts and voices at the door?

Rejoice.

Let your requests be made known to God.

The peace of God will guard your hearts and your minds.

Think about good things.

Take every thought captive to obey Christ.

God gave us a spirit of self-control (sound mind).

We need to ask Him to help us do this. These are His promises for those who believe in Him.

Negativity will keep knocking on our doors. It’s part of what tries to invade and keeps our focus off the love of our Savior. There will always be a battle there: either from others or within our own selves.

But we now have a loving answer—one with structure, safety, boundaries, healthy relating, and a Savior who spread His arms out on a cross as His pledge and promise to always help us defeat the dark things that plague us.

Why?

Because He’s already defeated them.

And He’s got our backs.

Philippians 4:4-9, Apostle Paul speaking, ESVRejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

2 Corinthians 10:5, Apostle Paul speaking, ESVWe destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.

2 Timothy 1:7, Apostle Paul speaking, ESVFor God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control*.

This past weekend, I took my oldest son with me to visit my parents. It was a nice, long drive through New England and the middle states during leaf peeping season. The hand of God almost seemed to be painting treetops as we drove. My parents now live in farm country, where life somehow seems slower and cornfields abound—even the occasional buggy or two. And I really didn’t know how much my frantic, suburban heart needed cows and cornfields until I had been there a few hours and soaked it all in.

My father recently had surgery to remove his bladder. I went down there post-op to check on him but also to hear face-to-face the plan from here on out. Phone calls just didn’t cut it. I needed to look at him and see where life after surgery had taken him.

I was amazed. In addition to decorating the foliage with a beautiful array of color, God was apparently also strengthening a body that should be beaten down and exhausted after a sum total of five tumors over many years and, most recently, ten hours of surgery and four units of blood—but, overall, it wasn’t. I’m sure it was for the first few weeks after surgery, but it certainly wasn’t now.

While God was growing cornfields so tall with bonneted women bending over to eagerly check the harvest, He was also apparently breathing fresh peace through a cottage home: winds of reassurance, a cloak of safety.

While He was giving cows full milk to squeeze in industrious dairy farms all over His rolling fields, He was also delivering love, food, gifts, and messages to two of His children weathering a raging storm.

And this moment converged in my own life with crazy-busy slamming in regularly and not letting go. So, sitting in this peaceful countryside did much to soothe me and my son. I napped when they napped. I worshipped when they worshipped. And I slowed way down for a few days.

Blogs and book signings by the wayside.

My own “mom duties” minimal.

Just breathing in hay smells and watching the buggies clomp-clomp down a street that wasn’t too busy for them. How badly I yearned to be a buggy in those moments.

We even watched an old movie snuggled under afghans after warm chicken pot pie.

This isn’t where I grew up. Where I was raised used to have tall cornfields. I could get lost in them for hours. I still dream about them from time to time. But developments popped up everywhere, the high school grew enormous, and streets became busy. My parents found that quiet space again when they retired, and it’s a place to truly feel restoration and refreshment.

I thought I was going just to see how things were going, but God also delighted me with rest.

The noise around me stopped.

I could see where this was the best place for my father to convalesce. How could you not heal in a place where people seem to have enough time and quiet to feel God’s breath on their faces as He exhaled?

When I asked my son what his favorite part was, it wasn’t the Chinese food buffet we went to (although that ranked up there) but rather the amazing worship choir/band/orchestra at their church—and relaxing. It said a lot to me about what a family in our season of life back home in Massachusetts was like. We had been spinning like tops, trying to find a good stopping place, but we hadn’t found it yet.

Until this trip.

I found it difficult to part with the calm I felt in their part of the country. I found myself longing for another escape there very soon—with a different child this time, to be fair.

But I also realized that God provides in ways that are sometimes not thought of or expected by us.

–The visiting nurse arriving to discuss my father’s body functions, in her own way, was Jesus tangibly holding his hand.

–The woman at church who wrote so many sentiments and cards was Christ’s disciple washing my father’s feet.

–The beaming smiles of the friends in the pew behind them were life-giving gifts from a Father Who deeply loves us.

For seven weeks, I had been sitting in my home, half a day’s drive away, crying out to God (joining the voices of many others) for my father’s provision, and this weekend, I got to meet some of them. I was able to thank them. I was able to touch into what God had been doing while I lived away. And I was able to feel the Father’s warm embrace that “He’s got this. He always has. He takes care of His children.”

I returned to talk at a speaking engagement the very next day, but I was rested, calm, at peace, and knowing my Father in heaven better. He knew I came to check on my dad, but isn’t it just like God to take care of us at the same time?

Life picked up where it left off, except I had auburn-golden-crimson colors in my mind. The kindness of strangers. God’s kiss on my face in the smile of a coffee shop manager. A peace that passes all understanding swirling through my parents’ home.

That peace certainly didn’t belong there on its own because cancer doesn’t speak peace.

Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus speaking, ESV“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”